For women, half is the battle

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There is not one country where women are truly equal with men,
reports Cosima Marriner on International Women's Day.

Women have made great strides in recent years - increasing their
numbers in parliaments, gaining on men in the pay stakes and
becoming more educated. The last big international study of gender
equality, Progress of the World's Women, issued by the
United Nations in 2002, found advances around the world, although
the pace of change was too slow in many regions, especially
sub-Saharan African countries struggling with poverty, conflict and
the effects of HIV/AIDS.

Where are the best - and worst - places for women to live? The
answer is not as obvious as it may seem. Despite their problems, at
least 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have higher rates of
women's parliamentary participation than countries such as France,
Japan and the United States, the UN notes.

Few countries shine on many levels and in some categories there
are surprising standouts, including Rwanda and Kenya. Nordic
countries such as Sweden, Finland and Norway come closest to female
nirvana when judged by political representation, wages, health and
family-friendly policies.

The worst countries for women to live in - by our standards at
least - are likely to be poor and war-torn, or unsympathetic to
women's rights, such as Saudi Arabia. But finding the faultlines is
not as simple as plotting the borders between East and West.

The chasm between the haves and have-nots makes the US
"shocking" for many women, says a University of Adelaide academic,
Barbara Pocock. Low minimum wages (about $A6.50 an hour compared
with $12.30 an hour in Australia), a welfare system aimed at
pushing people back into work, expensive health care and the
dominance of individual bargaining means many women are left on the
outer.

In Australia, women are generally well educated and healthy,
their wages are relatively close to men's and they have their
rights enshrined in law. But academics warn the gains of the 1970s
and '80s are starting to erode as women struggle to balance work
and family.

"We certainly have more [Australian] women in positions of power
than we had, we have more women earning higher incomes and they are
better educated," says the feminist Eva Cox, a senior lecturer in
humanities at the University of Technology, Sydney. "But we haven't
changed our work culture nearly enough. On the numbers game we've
done a lot better than we have on the power-shifting game."

POWER

Rwanda is an unlikely bastion of female empowerment. But with
women occupying 39 of the 80 seats in its national parliament, the
war-torn nation boasts the highest proportion of female politicians
anywhere in the world. Rwanda's gender balanced parliament is due
to two factors: a 30 per cent quota for women enshrined in its
constitution and a proportional representation system for
elections.

No longer a victim of brutal men ... for Marie Baby Sapateh, Australia is "a great change".Photo:Lisa Wiltse

Quotas and proportional representation are crucial if women are
to increase their numbers in government, says Marian Sawer,
professor of politics at the Australian National University. Quotas
force parties to stand a certain number of female candidates.
Proportional representation provides an incentive to put forward a
balanced ticket to appeal to a range of voters.

Women in the Nordic countries have benefited from these two
measures, making up 45 per cent of the Swedish parliament, 37.5 per
cent in Finland and 36 per cent in Norway, according to the
Interparliamentary Union.

At the other end of the scale are the Gulf states and some
Pacific nations. The parliaments of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain
and the United Arab Emirates have no female representatives. Nor do
Tonga, Micronesia, Nauru or the Solomon Islands.

In recent decades Australian women steadily increased their
representation in Federal Parliament, only to suffer a decline in
last year's election when the proportion of female MPs dipped from
25.3 per cent to 24.7 per cent. Sawer attributes this to the
Coalition's increasing move to the right, its aversion to quotas
(unlike Labor, which has achieved a 35 per cent quota), and the
adversarial nature of Westminster politics. Sawer believes quotas
are important if the sexes are to be equally represented.

"It's important to ensure there are a range of perspectives
represented in Parliament ... It also raises the status of women in
society in general," she says.

MONEY

But this is probably due to the relatively small participation
of women in the formal labour force in Kenya, says Pocock. This
also explains the small wages gaps in Cambodia (where women earn 77
per cent of what men do), Ghana (75 per cent), and Tanzania (71 per
cent).

An effective minimum wage is the key to narrowing the gap, says
Pocock. Sweden has the second best female-to-male wage ratio, at
0.83. Australian women have the seventh smallest wages gap in the
world, earning 71 per cent of the male wage.

The wages gap is widest where pay rates are unregulated,
individual bargaining rights are minimal and immigrants with little
protection make up a large proportion of workers. This includes
Saudi Arabia, where women earn just 21 per cent of the male wage,
Oman (22 per cent), Belize in Central America (24 per cent) and
Peru (27 per cent).

How much women earn is partly dictated by their education level.
Most countries have now achieved gender equality in secondary
school education, according to the Progress of the World's
Women report.

But in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia there are still far
fewer girls in secondary school than boys. In Niger, Guinea,
Mozambique, Burundi and Chad, fewer than 10 per cent of teenage
girls are enrolled in high school.

FAMILY

Many developed countries - including Australia - score poorly on
child care, maternity leave and child benefits for women. A 2004
OECD report found Turkey, Mexico and New Zealand were the only
countries in the developed world with poorer family-friendly
provisions than Australia. Scandinavian mothers receive the most
support.

Australia, New Zealand and the US are among a handful of
governments that do not require women to be paid some form of
maternity leave. In countries as diverse as Russia, Colombia, Laos
and Morocco, the government foots the entire bill for three to six
months of maternity leave. In other countries, including Iraq,
Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, employers must pay maternity leave
benefits.

The Howard Government recently introduced lump sum baby care
payment, which will eventually increase to $5000, but this is not
genuine maternity leave, because it is paid to all mothers
regardless of whether they return to work after the birth of their
child or stay at home.

The Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Pru Goward, blames the lack
of maternity leave, affordable child care and flexible workplaces
for the slow growth in the number of Australian women in full-time
work. In 1980, 27 per cent of Australian women were in full-time
work. Despite a surge in female university graduates, that figure
has increased only to 31 per cent today.

"Good child care is essential if you're going to increase the
participation of women in the workforce," says Goward. "Women can't
work without feeling confident their children are well looked
after."

HEALTH

So poor is their health that Zambian women can expect to live to
only 32.5 years, Zimbabwean women to 33.5 and Sierra Leonean women
to 35.6, according to the 2004 Human Development Index. The
combined effect of civil wars, HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty shorten
the lives of many African women and contribute to high maternal
mortality rates.

Japanese women are likely to live nearly three times as long as
African women, on average reaching their 85th birthday. Hong Kong
women also live long lives (average age 82.7), as do those in
Sweden (82.5), Australia (82) and Italy (81.9).

Women in disadvantaged social positions are twice as likely to
suffer poor health, says a 2004 World Health Organisation report,
because they are likely to be exposed to malnutrition, poor water
supply and sanitation, unsafe sex, tobacco, drug and alcohol use,
dangerous work and pollution.

Health is a key factor in rating women-friendly countries
because it is linked to education, wealth, employment and gender
bias, says Dr Angela Taft, from the Public Health Association of
Australia.

Under the Taliban, women in Afghanistan were not allowed to be
seen with a man who wasn't a family member. As there were no female
doctors, this meant they were unable to seek medical treatment. The
suicide rate increased, as did the mortality and morbidity rate. In
China and India, where there is cultural preference for sons, there
are high rates of foeticide and infanticide.

SAFETY

Although the UN rates the mistreatment of women as one of the
three biggest problems hindering development, there is little
internationally comparable data. Results from a UN survey are
expected by the end of the year.

Among developed countries, Australia has a relatively high
incidence of sexual assault. One per cent of women in Australia,
Finland and Sweden reported having been sexually assaulted,
compared with the 0.6 per cent international average, according to
the UN's International Crime Victims survey 2000. Women in Japan,
Ireland, Poland and Portugal were least likely to have been
sexually assaulted.

But Australian women were less likely to suffer domestic
violence than those in other countries. "Women in our country are
well educated, and the legal system makes physical and sexual
assault crimes," Taft says, noting the laws also need to be
properly implemented.

Eight per cent have been physically assaulted by an intimate
partner, according to the UN, compared with nearly half the
Bangladeshi female population, 34 per cent in Egypt and 29 per cent
in Canada.

Violence against women is rife in countries involved in civil
wars. In Rwanda from April 1994 to April 1995, estimates of the
number of women and girls raped range from 15,700 to more than
250,000, the UN says.

Domestic violence increases in countries at war. Women who live
in male-oriented societies are also more vulnerable. The first
sexual experience of many girls is often unwanted and forced.

Gender mutilation and child marriages are common in some
countries, and hundreds of thousands of girls are bought and sold
into prostitution or sexual slavery every year, according to a WHO
report on violence and health.

"In countries where women are legislatively and culturally
inferior, the rate of violence against women is much higher," Taft
says.

Free at last to lead a life of her own

"I have my freedom," says Marie Baby Sapateh when asked what she
likes best about living in Australia. The 36-year-old Sierra Leone
native was one of 2 million people - more than a third of the
country's population - forced to flee her homeland in the late
1990s. Sierra Leone was destroyed by a decade of civil war that
came to an end in 2002.

Sapateh escaped to Guinea first before arriving in Australia in
2001 as a refugee. She suffered the full horror of war in Sierra
Leone. Her husband was shot dead in front of her, she was
gang-raped, and two of her children went missing.

"We suffer the worst suffering," Sapateh says of Sierra Leone
women, who have a life expectancy of 45. "They rape women young and
old; they don't ask. They amputate some girls. They ask the son to
rape the mother."

Sapateh has since been reunited with her two children - she
declines to speak about the details - and is working as a nursing
assistant and living in Marrickville.

"My life is happy because I am here with my family. We came here
traumatised from war, we were treated badly ... and now we are
free."

In Australia she has access to medical care, government
assistance and better wages - and she is free to wear trousers.

"There I eat and sleep, but not like here. Here I have computer,
I have video, I have this, I have that ... I can also look after my
other family back home. When I was there I couldn't give them five
cents. There you are the man's belonging. Here everyone gets their
own share."